"Oh, I will learn," cried the boy, "if you will teach me."
"And you will promise never, never again to squeeze my breath out in that awful manner?"
"Faithfully I will promise everything you ask."
"Why, then," said Peronella, rising up, with her eyes sparkling, "you had better come and live with my mother and me. We have a little pension and we want a lodger."
"What?" said Norman, not trusting himself to have understood.
"Come—and—live—with—my—mother-and—me, that is, if you like."
"O Peronella, I am afraid." And indeed the boy was really getting seriously frightened of this persistent maiden.
"But will you come? Or will you not have enough rest or amusement? Perhaps you would rather stay at the Palace Hotel. Most foreigners do. Ours is a very poor house. But the Palace Hotel is not really a palace. Will you come? It would be much less expensive for you, and we have no mosquitoes, and mother cooks divinely."
"How dare you ask me, you mad girl? You must think we live in snow houses and get our hearts frozen up in the north. Let us go at once!"
He made as if to accompany her, highly pleased at his proficiency in Alsandrian.